


bury a friend

by racheljessop



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Angst, F/F, References to Alcohol, references to drug abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26223451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/racheljessop/pseuds/racheljessop
Summary: Faith goes to the final meeting Tracey asks for in her letter.
Relationships: Tracey Lader/Faith Seed
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16





	bury a friend

**Rachel,**

**I'm sorry but being called Faith is cheesy at best and spooky at worst. Can we just meet and talk (on MY turf)?**

**I'm tired of this 19th-century-ass writing shit. I know Joseph is reading these too. Look, if you're so sure about all this like you say, you should be able to handle a simple conversation with a friend.**

**If you don't show up you know what I'll think of the situation.**

**Tracey**

* * *

Tracey thought she’d seen a ghost at first, catching a sight of the woman clad in white through the trees. It seemed just as likely as her old friend actually showing up to the meeting she’d asked for, at the old spot in the woods they used to ride up to to smoke and look at the stars. Maybe she was a ghost. She hadn’t laid eyes on the woman in over six months, or gotten a word from her that wasn’t ink on old stationary.

The woman moved through the woods into the clearing, light pressure in every step, skipping from spot to spot through violet lupine reaching up to brush her shins, the air of a child playing hopscotch. _Dressed as one too_ , Tracey thought, watching the uneven lace hem of her skirt bounce with her motions. She did a half-curtsy as she came into the clearing, maintaining the unnatural lightness in her steps, never putting her full weight down. But now Tracey could see why, looking down at the cuts and bruises decorating bare feet visible without the wood’s camouflage.

“Aren’t you fucking cold?” Tracey demanded as a greeting, pulling her own hooded jacket closer to her.

“I feel fine, Tracey.” She practically sang the words, spreading her arms out and away from her body as if to prove a point.

Tracey pulled hers closer, crossing them around her chest.

“Uh huh.” She looked down at the other woman’s feet with a jerk of her head. “Had a fucking tetanus shot recently?”

Faith giggled. “Don’t need it. I’m protected, by the Father.”

“Well, let me know when the rest of the goddamn Seed family has to start walking around barefoot in frilly dresses.” Tracey felt her stomach fall a little, like this was over before it began. _Damnit Tracey, this isn’t what you came here to do._

“Look, I’m not here to fight. I just wanted to have an honest discussion.”

Faith nodded in understanding, trying to erase any sign of discomfort from her face with a smile.

Tracey awkwardly dug hands in her pockets, kicking a rock in front of her. “Thanks for coming. Were you followed?”

“Only as far as the road.”

Tracey scoffed. _Far enough_ , she thought, but kept quiet in the name of civility.

“Does he know you’re here?”

“That I wanted to speak to a nonbeliever. That they wanted to meet alone to discuss our ideas.”

Tracey raised an eyebrow. “He knows it’s me?”

“He didn’t ask. He holds no grudges.”

“You didn’t say?” Silence. Tracey shrugged. “At least you have the good sense to lie to him too.”

“I would never.” Defensiveness crept back into her voice. Tracey felt her skin prickle with nerves. This was like disarming a bomb.

“He would to you.” She barely whispered it.

Faith shook her head. “No Tracey, The Father showed me the truth. Showed me my purpose.”

Tracey took a few steps closer to her friend, rocks and dried brush crunching under her boots. Only now she allowed herself to take in her image at close range. Blonde hair fell in effortless waves, reflecting moonlight almost in an ethereal halo. Tracey remembered her blue eyes, but in the night they looked nearly green and slightly clouded, shining back too much of the light of the full moon. Her whole figure practically looked shrouded in a light mist, and at this distance Tracey’s nose was assaulted with the thick, overly sweet smell she recognized as bliss flowers, the same kind the girls used to sneak out and run through fields of behind her parent’s greenhouse, laughing until they fell down dizzy on the edge of the field, world spinning around them. She could practically feel the spinning now. Faith let out a sigh, her breath showing in a cloud of condensation, and Tracey told herself the perpetual fog surrounding the girl was just a trick of the light and the cold night. She focused on a tree just behind her friend, trained eyes on the vertical grooves in the bark to stop the spinning in her head.

“I miss you.” Her eyes didn’t waver from the point in the background she’d locked on as she said it.

The other woman’s voice was like a bell, clear and melodic and seeming to vibrate straight through Tracey’s heart. “I miss you too.”

“Then come with me.” Her eyes narrowed but she wouldn’t look, couldn’t look at her friend.

“You know I can’t. I have a purpose now. A duty.”

“You’re not safe.” She growled the words through clenched teeth, fists bunched up in her pockets.

“No, Tracey, you’re not safe.” Faith rocked forward on tiptoes, forcing Tracey to look at her again. “The world is coming to an end. I’ve seen it, he’s shared his vision with me.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as if recalling something in vivid detail. “Only those who follow the Father will be saved.”

Tracey brushed past her with a scoff. “Jesus, Rachel. You’ve really bought into this shit.” She kept her back turned. It hurt her eyes to look at the other. Her blonde hair, pale skin, shimmering white dress, it was all too bright and blinding. She felt a hand on her back, sending a jolt through her. She stiffened but did not turn around. “Faith.” She corrected. Tracey stayed silent. “You used to believe too.”

“No the fuck I didn’t! I was a kid, just looking for a place to belong!” She shook the delicate hand from her shoulder, but made no effort to move or turn around. “And so were you. So _are_ you.”

“He would welcome you back. He would forgive you.”

“Forgive me all the way to the bottom of a cave.”

Silence, followed by footsteps through the brush. Tracey didn’t want to turn around to see where she moved.

“That wouldn’t happen.”

“It would. It has. And it will. To you, if you’re not careful.”

“I don’t have to be careful. I just have to be faithful.”

“You’re fucking high.” Tracey regretted the words as soon as she spat them out. She knew it was hitting below the belt with Rachel, she didn’t come here to poke her wounds or degrade her. She waited for her to cry, to yell, to run off.

Instead, she spoke calmly. “I’m _reborn_. Awake. My eyes are open.” She followed with a hum, then a playful laugh. “Besides, you’re one to talk.”

Tracey laughed back, despite herself, and finally turned around. She leaned back on a tree, left leg raised to prop her against the trunk, and looked directly at her friend again. It sent shivers down Tracey’s spine, how she held herself stiff, like a doll, legs crossed in modesty and fingers laced delicately together, palms turned outward and parallel to the ground in front of her, spine aligned unnaturally straight like she grew from the dirt, among the plants.

“We used to have fun though, right?”

Rachel glanced around nervously, as if looking for someone to tell her how to respond. Her eyes dropped to the ground and her voice followed, lowering an octave. “I think. I wasn’t happy, though. I was so lost.”

“You’re happy now, huh?”

She turned her head to the side, staring at the moon. “Are you?”

Tracey scoffed. “Almost never, no.”

“Then what do you have to lose?”

 _You_. “My life.”

“Are you really living?”

“Yeah Rachel, I’m living my own goddamn life, making my own decisions, sleeping in my own house, going where the fuck I want, talking to who I want how I want, and wearing what the fuck I want, not dressing like a little girl at Easter in the middle of fucking October!”

She squinted her eyes at Tracey, in something between a glare and pity. “You’re so lost.”

“No, I’m living in the real fucking world and not a fantasy invented by a fucking lunatic.”

“The Father is not crazy.” Her voice quivered.

“No, he’s fucking worse. He’s a manipulative scumbag who takes in scared, vulnerable people and uses them for his sick Jesus fantasy then tosses them out.” Tracey clawed at the tree bark behind her nervously, feeling the wood give way and dig under her fingernails. “I don’t want to see that happen to you, Rachel.”

“It’s not! He’s helping me.”

“He’s fucking abusing you! I _know_ you’re scared of him.”

“I’m not. I’m safe with him.”

“You’re lying, Rachel! Or else you’re really that fucking stupid. I was there. I saw how he dug his hooks into you, and it fucking worked. Now you won’t even talk to you friends, use your own name.”

“I have a name. And a family. And a purpose. And I’m _not_ stupid.” She sounded wounded, and Tracey felt now too familiar regret.

“I’m sorry, you’re not. You never were, Rachel.” She said gently before returning to a firm tone, not backing down now. “But you were weak, and afraid, and vulnerable, and young, and he saw that and took advantage. Fucking brainwashed you.”

Rachel’s expression finally cracked, showing hurt and anger in full force, no longer clouded over.

“Y-you’re jealous. Because for once someone saw something special in me, and not you! That I was chosen, and I didn’t need you for it!”

“Jesus, is that what you think I want Rach? To be Joseph’s special little flower girl? Is that what he _told_ you?”

“You’re mad I didn’t need you anymore! I’m not a little girl, I grew up!”

“No you fucking didn’t!” She banged a fist against the tree she leaned on, steadying herself back to her feet and in the other woman’s face to shout, “And I sure as shit didn’t want Joseph fucking Seed’s attention!” She saw tears gathering in aqua eyes and made herself softer, barely able to hear her own voice over the wind rushing past her ears, chapping her face so raw she could barely feel it. She leaned in close to her friend. “I wanted you, Rachel. I always just wanted you.”

She searched ocean eyes, still quivering with tears, for understanding. Without getting an answer, she placed a hand on her face, skin cold to touch but so soft and smooth porcelain. She rubbed gentle circles to warm her cheek up, and felt her own warm breath bounce back into her face from their closeness as she spoke, “It’s always been about you.”

It would have only taken a tiny gust of wind to push her along the distance she closed, placing their lips gently together, finally feeling something warm and alive on her friend. She couldn’t even tell if the soft pressure back was intentional, or just another shift of the air. Even worse, just her own wishful thinking. But still she kissed her. She moved so softly against her mouth, and it still stung, chapped lips against chapped lips. Tracey wished her eyes could stay closed and lips against this woman’s and nose breathing in her scent, now not just the sickly sweet of bliss flowers but the warm, earthy smell that was just her, was just Rachel, forever.

But she knew nothing was forever, and she parted to breath, gulping cold air down until it burned her lungs like ice water, or whiskey snuck out of someone’s freezer. She savors the tingling sensation lingering on her lips, and trails her hand down the woman’s face, along her arm to hold her hand. 

“Shit Rach, you’re fucking freezing.”

Tracey lets go of her hand and she thinks for a second she sees sadness on her face at the separation. She tugs on the sleeves of her denim jacket to remove it and swishes it around to drape over Rachel’s shoulders, then pulls the girl in tight, tucking her head under her chin and shielding her from the cold, the wind, everything for a moment longer.

“Please come with me Rachel. We’ll go tonight, right now, and we’ll be safe. I promise. I know you might not want me the way I want you, and you never have to. But please come with me. Just to get enough time to think about it.”

Tracey could feel damp lashes move against her exposed neck, even though the girl was ghostly silent. A small hand gripped the fabric of her flannel.

When she did speak, into Tracey’s chest, her voice barely cracked. “Rachel did want you like that Tracey, she always did.” She looked up, sorrow turning to determination, “But Rachel is dead. I killed her. And Faith…”

Tracey’s stomach felt like she was falling from devil’s drop, but she’d never, ever hit the ground. She loosened her arms and stumbled back, trying to reassure herself she was on solid ground, the wind was still whooshing and moon still shining and blue green eyes still bearing into hers. “And Faith doesn’t give a shit about anyone but Daddy Joseph.” She finished for her with vitriol, forcefully pulling Faith’s hand from her shirt.

“Tracey, it’s not—”

“You made your choice.”

“We all have to sacrifice things we love.” She stopped falling, and he word ‘love’ was the jagged rock piercing through her heart when she landed.

“So how long until he sacrifices you? Like the others?” She says it through gritted teeth.

“It’s different. I’m devoted to him, to his messages, to the Project!”

“Then I guess you better run back to him.”

Faith opened her mouth to argue but nothing came out, and she nodded solemnly and started to shrug off the jacket.

“Keep it.” Tracey barked. “Wouldn’t want to be responsible for letting one of The Father’s precious heralds freeze to death in the woods.” She deadpanned.

“I can’t keep it.”

“It doesn’t matter to me.”

“It’s not that, I can’t anyways –”

“I don’t need it back.”

“It wouldn’t be allowed in the Project.” She finally said, words shaky again. “It’s not… we have our own clothes, to stand together. To honor God. You remember.”

In spite of everything, Tracey still felt fear for her friend trickling through her like molten lava in her veins, threatening to find a crack to erupt through. Her chest tightened, and she was furious with herself for still caring so much.

“Just toss it in the woods before you get to wherever you’re going.”

Faith opened her mouth to protest again, but a forceful breeze pushed through the trees, blowing blonde locks into her face and making her shiver and pull the jacket tighter around herself. When the air settled, all she could say was “Thank you.”

Tracey just nodded. Faith turned and walked back the way she came, this time cutting a path through flowers and branches without bothering to skip and dodge the rocks and thorns gracing the land. Tracey wondered if her legs had gone numb as she watched the gleaming vision, angelic image marred by the dingy denim jacket wrapped around her, slowly disappearing into the trees. She almost smiled at the thought of how, removing the Montana woods, this could’ve been a vision of Rachel from the older days, stumbling home drunk in an impractical outfit Tracey told her not to wear, Tracey begrudgingly carrying the high heel shoes her friend had long since discarded. Her Rachel.

 _But Rachel Jessop is dead, and Tracey Lader will be too if she doesn’t get her ass out of the freezing woods_ , she thought, shuffling back to her four-wheeler, kicking a leg over and driving down the winding dirt path she’d rode up on, trying to think about nothing but the squeal of the tires.

She didn’t leave the house for three days afterwards. Called in sick to her shitty job. Littered the floor with beer and wine bottles.

On the third day, she heard a knock at the door. She ignored the first, turning to her side and burying face in the couch cushions. But the pounding at the door and in her head got louder until she gave in. She cracked the door to see the obvious markers her uninvited guest was a peggy – long beard, fresh looking tattoos.

“Not buyin’ any.” She slammed the door in his face.

“Miss I uh, I just have a delivery for ya.” He shouted through the door.

Tracey made a crack to peer through. “Shove it up your ass and leave me alone.” She couldn’t make out what he held. 

“I’ll just… leave it here then, alright?”

“I said fuck off.”

Tracey bolted the door and moved to the window to peer through the blinds and watch the man get in his white pickup and drive off. When she was sure he was gone, she walked back to the door, opened it, and quickly scooped the parcel from the porch before slamming and bolting the door back.

The crumpled lump was denim, poorly folded and hastily tied with a white ribbon. Tracey hesitantly pulled the ribbon and unfurled the offering. Her jacket. The sleeves were dirty beyond repair, thorns and branches still sticking out and dried blood staining the cuff of one of the sleeves. But undeniably hers. She pulled it close to her, inhaling. Somehow, it didn’t smell like the pine woods, or dirt, or the pungent floral of the bliss that seemed to stick on its users, it just smelled like her. Like Rachel. Tracey pulled it close and took another deep breath, savoring the smell. As she did, she saw a small folded piece of paper fall out of one of the pockets.

Fingers trembling, she unfolded the paper and looked at what she immediately recognized as Rachel’s writing.

_“Tracey,_

_Thank you. For everything.”_

And by the dash for a signature, not a name, not Faith, not Rachel, but a small scribble followed by the words, _“Your friend, always.”_

Tracey buried her face back in the jacket and, for the first time, allowed herself to cry in mourning, the worn jacket holding both the scent of her lost friend and her tears. 


End file.
